the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader.

This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.

It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

Our belief in education is unbounded, our reverence for it is unfaltering, our loyalty to it is unshaken by reverses. Our passionate desire, not so much to acquire it as to bestow it, is the most animated of American traits.

Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

I wonder what especial sanctity attaches itself to fifteen minutes. It is always the maximum and the minimum of time which will enable us to acquire languages, etiquette, personality, oratory ... One gathers that twelve minutes a day would be hopelessly inadequate, and twenty minutes a wasteful and ridiculous excess.

We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers.